ART Division

For the 25 years since our founding, we had operated consistently as a trading company. As a distributor, a trading company is assured distribution rights in return for meeting sales targets. To achieve those targets, it first invests money, effort and time in raising awareness of a product's value and benefits. We invite doctors from overseas, arrange conference lectures and workshops, exhibit at conferences and advertise in specialist journals. Yet, just when five or six years of work have established a brand, raised its profile and begun to yield a return on that investment, deeply frustrating events can occur. For example, we may discover that a manufacturer has established a Japanese subsidiary without our knowledge, or that it has been acquired by a company already operating in Japan, bringing our distributorship to an end.

We have experienced several such instances of losing a business we worked hard to build—situations that threatened the very survival of our company. To avoid repeating them, we came to believe that we should develop our own products, nurture them continuously and pursue a path as a manufacturer that can keep providing value to our customers.